


Are You Lonesome Tonight?

by vienna_waits



Category: due South
Genre: Dark, Depot, Drama; Community: ds_aprilfools, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-17
Updated: 2010-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienna_waits/pseuds/vienna_waits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't have to be alone to feel the very worst kind of lonesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You Lonesome Tonight?

The stiff wind blowing off the prairies had teeth of ice, but Ben couldn't be bothered to notice. He just stood there under the enormous oak in the courtyard, now bereft of leaves, its branches reduced to haunted dark fingers melting into the October night sky, and looked down at the letter in his left hand, slightly crumpled and sweaty from being pressed so tightly into his palm.

He didn't need to read it again to know what it said.

No one was coming. Graduation was two days hence, and neither his grandparents, nor his father, nor Buck or Julie, nor anyone from home would be here to see it.

It doesn't matter, he told himself firmly. Stop being such a baby. Even if they're not here, this is still the greatest day of your life, they're still proud of you, and you're getting what you've always wanted.

A different voice in his head ventured, Are you?

He shook his head vigorously. "Stop being ridiculous," he chastised himself out loud, hoping to quiet his racing thoughts.

"Talking to yourself again, Ben?" Dean, his troopmate and only friend—of a sort—at Depot, stepped into the light cast by the nearby buildings. "You do that a lot, you know."

Ben shrugged. "In the North, you often have only yourself to talk to. It does make for rather dull conversation," he allowed with a half-smile.

Dean looked him up and down, jerked his head at the paper clenched in Ben's fist. "Bad news from home?"

Ben just shrugged again, his eyes glued to the ground, not knowing what to say.

"Well," Dean shrugged back, "then I guess you're not interested in knowing about the little graduation party of our own we're having over by the driving range."

Ben's eyes came up. "What? When?"

Dean smirked, pleased at the reaction. "Come on, Ben. Now. Saturday will be full of God-awful boring speeches and apple-polishing, but tonight is just us. Just the Troop. It's our own little ceremony. I know some of the guys gave you hell for a while there…"

Ben remembered vividly the feel of his knuckles connecting with Tim Beckley's chin, the collective horrified gasp that followed it: the Freak had finally had enough and wasn't going to take it anymore!

It had been worth every single push-up, every single toilet scrubbed, every single night sleeping under his cot rather than in it. It had been worth it.

"…Ben, you still with me? Listen, I know some of the guys were jerks for a while, but this is our last chance to let it hang out, our last chance before we have to get all spit-and-polish, and then it'll be over and we'll all get shipped out. Come on, come with me." He waited, holding Ben's gaze.

"I…I don't know," Ben temporized.

"You'll regret it if you don't."

Ben looked down once more at the letter, went utterly still for a moment, and then opened his hand.

The wind greedily snatched the letter away and hurtled it into the inky darkness.

"Okay," Ben said. "Okay." But he knew you didn't have to be alone to feel the very worst kind of lonesome.


End file.
